It has been said many times that Apache is the world’s most popular webserver. Because it lacks a GUI environment it may not appear as friendly to a newcomer as it’s commercial rivals. Recently I’ve gotten over that awkward phase and have begun to make Apache work for me. I’d like to share what I’ve learned in the hope that it will help others flatten their learning curve.Apache has a ton of features that are primarily controlled by in a text file called httpd.conf. Here are a some features I plan to cover at the meeting that are defined in httpd.conf and a few other config files.
* Virtual hosts on one machine
* Using a single IP address for multiple hosts
* Using a separate IP for each host
* Setting up a Virtual host as a user inside a /home directory
* Configuring http.conf other non apache files to enable Virtual Hosts
Protecting files, directories and servlets:
* Authenticated realms
* Storing users in a File
* Storing users in a Database
* Using .htpasswd to protect access to a directory
* Setting file and directory permissions so the server process can read them but other users can’t.
* Telling “polite” search engines where to look for pages and where to stay out
Turning Apache into an “Application Server” using servlets:
* Adding servlet parameters and directives to httpd.conf
* Servlets owned by a single Virtual host
* Servlets available to all Virtual hosts
* Liabilities of the Java Virtual Machine